How did you decide you
were ready to write hippopotamus sea; my viral sobriety? As a follow
up, was writing your book a form of personal therapy?

Jared:

I began thinking about
writing the book as I was going through Interferon. I remembered
James Frey’s book and I was upset with its lack of detail and for
me its noticeable lack of humility. I had written some things in the
past and I knew I could make a written record of what I’d been
through and that it could help me, my family and others. I would say
it definitely helped me personally, therapeutically, but it also has
helped others suffering with Interferon and Hep C.

Norm:

Did you learn anything
from writing your book and what was it? As a follow up, whom do you
believe will benefit from your book and why?

Jared:

I learned a lot; the
publishing industry is interesting and the process of
self-publishing was much more detailed from start to finish than I’d
assumed it would be. From picking the fonts, to working with the
graphics designer on the cover, it was much more technical than I’d
ever imagined. I also thought that by giving away the digital format
of the book I would sell more hard copy books, and I don’t know if
I really proved that theory or not. We’re right at about 100 books
sold hard copy, with about 20 on smashwords sold and about 500 given
away, so that was a theory tested, and unproven for sure. Also, I
thought the domain name books4free.com would bring a lot more traffic
than it actually did. To be honest Norm, now I’m thinking perhaps
the book review business is the place to be.

As far as who will benefit
the most from my book, I think I’ve had the most positive response
from people who had actually been at the level of depravity and
insanity that I’d gone to and actually pulled back from it. As we
say in the program, “Earth” people may have a hard time relating
to the madness I tried so hard to document in its every harrowing
detail, and may end up either confused or even bored in the
repetitive nature of the disease of alcoholism. That’s fine, it
really is written for the suffering alcoholic and addict, and even
more specifically for the suffering hep c sufferer as they generally
are in recovery though certainly there are exceptions, many have
battle the disease.

Norm:

What challenges or
obstacles did you encounter while writing your book? How did you
overcome these challenges?

Jared:

Writing while having a
full-time job is a challenge, and ultimately you just have to
overcome it by doing it. I even think in exaggerations, I literally
believed I could finish it all in two weeks over Christmas break and
that was just dead wrong. It took a lot longer than that. Just like
with sobriety, a little bit at a time, perseverance, just keeping at
it. Disregarding everything else but the goal and setting aside
whatever time you have left over to write.

Norm:

What does your family and
friends think of your book?

Jared:

Most of the response was
very positive. I love the quote in the beginning I used from Henry
David Thorough, paraphrasing, which stated basically write as if you
were writing to long lost relatives. I mean with the Internet and
blogs and Facebook, even these things may be out here for a long
while, and though it certainly wasn’t written perfectly, it was
written honestly, and I know alcoholism has genetic characteristics,
so the idea that it could help future generations of my very own
family, is cool in its own right.

Norm:

How long have you being
sober and what is your life like now?

Jared:

As I write this I’ve
been sober 4.5 years. It is much better on this side of the disease
of alcoholism, than the slow steady downward spiral towards death. My
father shot himself rather than go through the 12 steps because he
didn’t know that they worked and that you can and will be relieved
of the obsession to drink and drug if you work them. If he’d known
that he wouldn’t have killed himself. I know a dozen or so people
in that same boat, and it’s a shame, and I don’t know why I was
one of the lucky ones who ends up getting it, but I have been.

The saying “I’ve never
known anyone to dumb for Alcoholics Anonymous, but I’ve known a lot
of people too smart” really helped me early on. I had to dumb down,
be willing to listen and learn from people who’d obviously gotten
sober, and then low and behold I received the very same miracle. I
don’t ever think about drinking anymore and I just didn’t know
that was a possibility. I still struggle with the side effects from
interferon, but even that has been improved since writing the book,
and new treatments, including Telaprevir shorten the time from 1 year
of Interferon likened to low level chemo, down to 6 months, and
improve those ratios of success from 50/50 to 80/20. Of course the
pharmaceutical industry double the cost, and in the US that’s still
a big deal, still as my book chronicles I was able to be treated for
a year for 100% sponsorship through the drug maker Roche, so miracles
do happen.

Norm:

What do you think of
the new Internet market for writers?

Jared:

To me, it seems very
similar to the old way. Hard to be heard among the masses of people
trying to be recognized. Sure its easier to bring to publication, but
getting noticed is still just as difficult it feels like. I’ve done
a lot of social networking stuff, and it grows tiresome. I wish I
could just write full -time. Maybe I just haven’t mastered all the
right tricks yet.

Norm:

Are you working on any
books/projects that you would like to share with us? (We would love
to hear all about them!)

Jared:

I don’t think I’ll do
anymore memoirs or non fiction. I flirted with the idea of going to
Afghanistan and embedding, but Michael Yon has got that market pretty
locked up and as a former Green Beret does some amazing writing and
reporting from the field, if you’ve never heard of him look him up,
his facebook posts are incredible.

So I think my next project
will be a series that I can hopefully build a following. But I’m a
ways off from really starting any project like that. Writing takes it
out of ya.

Norm:

Where can our readers find
out more about you and hippopotamus sea; my viral sobriety?